New Jersey’s Best Hot Dog – Where to Find it? [VIDEO]

Just as everyone has an opinion as to where to find Jersey’s best pizza (either Esposito’s in Matawan, or “Slice of Jersey” winner Del Ponte’s in Bradley Beach); so too opinions vary as to where to find New Jersey’s best hot dog.

I’ll give you my own – nothing beats the traditional Newark style hot dog you find at Jimmy Buff’s.
It can best be described as a “heart attack inside a pizza bread!”(Yes, you heard right, it’s a ‘pizza bread’!)

But that’s just me.

The New York Times recently did a tour of the best Jersey Hot Dog eateries and came up with a review.

I began my odyssey by arriving sharply at 9 a.m. at the state’s most legendary hot-dog parlor, the original home of the “ripper.” Founded in 1928 by Royal Rutt and his wife, Anna, on the south side of Clifton, only a 20-minute drive from Manhattan, Rutt’s Hut (417 River Road, 973-779-8615)

Near the northern end of Clifton, several working-class neighborhoods away, is the Hot Grill (669 Lexington Avenue, 973-772-6000).

The next leg of the trip involved an hour’s drive west to the tiny farming community of Buttzville, not far from the Delaware Water Gap and the Pennsylvania border, to Hot Dog Johnny’s (333 Route 46, 908-453-2882).

Farther into Phillipsburg, at the foot of the toll-free bridge favored by locals that goes to Easton, Pa., stands Jimmy’s Doggie Stand (7 Union Square, 908-859-1000).

Long Branch is the capital of a vastly different type of frankfurter. Max’s Famous Hot Dogs (25 Matilda Terrace, 732-571-0248), founded by Max Altman in 1928, occupies a spacious new spot on Ocean Boulevard, seating perhaps 120 at a counter that runs around the O-shaped bar and at a score of tables.

A few blocks south, in a building strikingly shaped like its Dutch muse, the WindMill (586 Ocean Boulevard, 732-229-9863) offers footlongs with a roster of toppings you spoon on yourself, including a New York-style heated sauerkraut that the counterman yanks from the griddle.

The most famous rendition (of the Newark style hot dog) is at Jimmy Buff’s (60 Washington Street, 973-325-9897) in West Orange, not far from Thomas Edison’s laboratory.

An even better example was found at Tommy’s Italian Sausage and Hot Dogs (900 Second Avenue, 908-351-9831), to the south in Elizabeth, where you can also order one, two or three franks crammed inside your pizza bread.

It was way past suppertime as I motored dizzily toward the Holland Tunnel, with one last stop to make. In Jersey City, next to an ornate and ancient movie theater, lurks the narrow yellow Boulevard Drinks (48 Journal Square Plaza, 201-656-1855) chopped raw onions and a Texas-wiener-style meat sauce with finely minced onions mixed in.